Wading through New Literacies

1) What am I learning about the new literacy I am researching?

    I really believe that the definition that Adam found of literacy speaks to my experience working with representing emotional literacy with scrapblog.  The definition states that “literacy is the ability to make and communicate meaning from and by the use of a variety of socially contextual symbols.”  This project spans past my ability to navigate a new digital realm, but also includes how I can COMMUNICATE information through that realm.  If I cannot portray my understanding of emotional literacy through this medium, then I don’t believe that I have achieved scrapblog literacy (though I am trying!!)  In order to research my topic, I obviously had to read, but I also had the opportunity to listen and view videos about emotional literacy in practice in schools.  To become more familiar with this literacy, I have really had to take the time to reflect upon my own experience learning: how did being out-of-touch, or in-touch with my emotions affect my learning at every level?  How would I have benefited from SEL, or Social and Emotional Learning?  What kinds of SEL practices are familiar to me from my grade school years?  Being able to reflect upon this has really opened my eyes to the importance of teaching students how to manage their emotions effectively, in order to be more effective learners of other subjects.

    I am learning how to implement SEL in the classroom.  One familiar technique is teaching students “I” statements to be in-touch with their emotions, and another is peer mediation.  Students have the power to be in control of conflict, when so often, teachers feel the need to monitor behavioral problems, and tell students what to do.  Giving students an opportunity to healthily express themselves in conflict can only benefit them.  I was honestly surprised to read how effective SEL is.  Sure, I figured that students being aware of their emotions was a good thing, but I never thought that nearly ALL students and nearly ALL schools that implemented these strategies found less fighting, more focus, etc.  I figured that the result would be more dependent upon the student, and not such a bulk result!

    I think that my kindergartners and first graders would need a lot of modeling of SEL.  They know that they need to be nice to each other, and need to “fill each other’s buckets,” and that they should “walk away” from conflict, but they do not have the proper training to be in charge of their emotions, and the emotions of their friends.  My students need to understand that their lives outside of school affect their behavior in class, and they need to know that we, as teachers, are empathetic of this, yet desire for them to continue to do their best.  They need to see the classroom as a supportive environment.  

2) What am I learning about how my digital literacy is developing as I use a new technology to create my product?

    In order to execute the work that I am doing with scrapblog, I definitely need to know the traditional literacy of writing... in a condensed, complete style!  I also have to be working toward gaining some kind of design literacy, in order to make my product appealing, and easy-to-interpret, visually.  To do this, I really “researched” my options on scrapblog, going through countless pages of possibilities, as well as viewed several other people’s products, to get an idea of how scrapblog can be used, visually.  

While I am a creative person, I have always been too hesitant to try to represent something digitally that I could represent with markers and paper.  Formatting papers, even, is difficult for me, so using technology to figure out where each sticker should go, and sorting through the program to find the perfect background, and what stickers will go with that background, and how to work all of the tools has been challenging, but fun!  At first, I learned that putting this together will take longer than it would if I completed it non-digitally, but at the same time, editing is much easier!      I am definitely learning that patience really pays off with this technology!  I was shocked to find out that some backgrounds and options on scrapblog had to be purchased with credits.  I do not know if credits relate to monetary value, or almost like a reward system for other people liking your work once it goes public, but I was surprised to see that not every background/sticker/text block, etc. option was free for me to use right away!

    I think that sifting through several articles about emotional literacy is incredibly boring and repetitive in comparison to what I have put together so far in my scrapblog.  The scrapblog is almost like a crash-course in emotional literacy, providing the main points in an aesthetically pleasing way.  Looking at black and white print has little immediate effect upon emotions, and little opportunity to foreshadow the message of the text, but scrapblog’s visual representation allows for me to highlight the important information, and use visuals to give a general feel as to what the slide is about.  For example, a brightly-colored geometric background promises groundbreaking, exciting information, whereas a pastel background with flowers offers more peaceful prose.  At the same time, it might be beneficial to be able to elaborate past bulletpoints, and I think some kind of sound medium would be a better medium for these elaborations.

    My students in the kindergarten and first grade might not have the patience to work with scrapblog, but I have seen them create some pretty exciting visuals using the computer, so they might be able to work with an adaptation of this technology.  They do, however, respond well to things that are colorful, but I would have to model how to pull the information from the slide, without focusing too much on the visual elements.  I think they would be excited to read something presented this way!  As for language arts, for example, I think students could use this kind of technology to represent the first, middle, and end of a story, using pictures and their own summaries.  This would build upon this idea in worksheet form, and give students an opportunity to work with a different kind of medium.